How to Craft Your Success Story

After you've taken inventory of your own self assessment, what stories can you tell others about the value you bring? This is the time to build up your arsenal of stories for your next role within the company or that next opportunity.

Resumes are boring and hardly articulate your value!

In a fast paced environment, hiring people need a quick way to put you in the yes/maybe/no pile to identify talent.?

Assuming you’ve had some expert support to put in keywords to land you in the Yes pile, the challenge becomes how to articulate your value.

So many of you have come across my doorstep and shared with me your accomplishments, but few know how to articulate your value and even better in the context of storytelling.

The outcome of your pursuit will die at “Tell me about yourself” unless you’ve honed this skill.?

I’m vested in your success as you reflect on your 2023 accomplishments and craft a message in pursuit of a new role, promotion or job so stick with me for a few more minutes.?

Examples of data-based storytelling:

“I was able to impact $100,000 savings to the bottom line."?

Every other resume says that, but you are not your resume. You need to stand out. For every accomplishment like the $100,000 cost savings you need to learn to follow the Hero’s journey to tell the story and draw people into your value.?

Value is created by knowing how to message what you did and the impact with the storytelling being the way to connect with humanity.

Here is an example of bad, better and best for implementing a new initiative that you successful led:

• Bad: I was responsible for implementing a $100,000 cost savings initiative in 6 months.
• Better: I was responsible for implementing a $100,000 savings?initiative by leveraging good change management, engaging with others and ensuring stakeholders were informed and leveraged during the 6 month event.
• Best: I was challenged with a $100,000 cost savings initiative in 6 months. Knowing it was a challenging task, I had to spend some time reflecting on how I would make this easy to adopt and maximize sustainable impact. I remember going to one plant manager who was often an early adopter. I tried a new way to message the initiative and how to customize it to his needs. He looked at my proposal and said he loved how I visually represented it so he could buy into it. We later tweaked the proposal based on his input and we moved forward. When I spoke about it at the next leadership meeting, he was quick? to share the value of the approach for which others then jumped in and spawned discussion. Had I not done this, I would have delivered the initiative with either crickets responding and hope I’d get compliance or possibly deflection and why we could not have done that. Through finding early adopters and collaborating together, I found the path forward to get the result and impact needed.

Do you see the difference? It takes practice, but this is what sets you apart and positions you for that next role, position or project.

If this was helpful, let me know, or if someone could benefit from this DIY lesson, please share it with them!

If you need some help, I’m here for you.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/15/23.?

Be well

-Deb